Christian's Responsibility (1964)
Part of a Panel at Urbana 64by Donald Hoke
This talk came as part of a panel entitled “Witness Unashamed (pt. II)”: Kenneth Kantzer—God’s Judgment; Eugene Nida—Man’s Awareness; Donald Hoke—Christian’s Responsibility; Paul Little—Student’s Response.
"By sheer prayer and determination she exercised herself out of that brace. And then she began to write letters around Asia. Finally there came a voice from China, 'We'll take you as you are.'"
What is my responsibility to missions? What makes the responsibility my responsibility to this witness unashamed? How can I recognize my responsibility in the light of the fact that a world without Jesus Christ, a world of three billion men and women without Jesus Christ is lost, and they're largely unaware of it?
May I suggest this morning that there are three factors that make for Christian responsibility or responsibility in any context. The first factor that makes for responsibility is a need which I can meet. The second factor which makes for a man's responsibility is a truth to which I am related and to which I should respond. And the third factor which makes for responsibility is a command which I should obey.
Our topic this morning is "Christian's Responsibility to Witness Unashamed to a Lost World." Let's apply these tests of responsibility, then, to you and to me as Christians and ask ourselves, "What in the light of these tremendous facts that we have just heard-scriptural facts and the anthropological context in which these facts have validity, is my responsibility?"
First of all, there is a world of men without Jesus Christ, and a Christian alone can meet this need. Dr. Kantzer has ably stated for us this morning the scriptural position of the lostness of men. Men without Jesus Christ are lost without God and without hope. Dr. Stott told us a few mornings ago and Dr. Nida graphically illustrated this morning that there is a veil before their eyes. They do not recognize their need. They are unaware of the fact that their basic need is a vertical relationship to God in Jesus Christ. And living in the deceptive atmosphere of this pseudo-Christian culture here in our own country, we often miss this.
But moving out of that atmosphere into an area where Christians are in a pitiful minority and very often in a persecuted and obscure one, this point is driven home with tremendous force.
Just ten years ago today I moved out of the country of Japan down to the city of Tokyo. The house that was prepared for me was not quite yet ready, and so I went to the home every day to do the last minute arrangements. I found that living next door was a well-to-do widow in a lovely home who was very kind in assisting me in adjusting to my new neighborhood. As we got to know her a little better and we enjoyed her kindness there in the early days of our penetration of that neighborhood, we came to appreciate her and know her as a friend. But after we had moved in and settled down, we invited her over to our home for dinner. Somewhere in the course of our early contact I had given her a piece of Christian literature and invited her careful attention to it. When she came to our home that night she told me her story.
Her husband, a wealthy businessman, had been killed in the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima. The shock came to her with tremendous force. One of the few women who before the war was a university graduate, she had been largely indifferent to religion, feeling it irrelevant. But faced with the prospect of loneliness and frustration and no sense of belonging whatsoever in this situation, and with three children to rear single-handed, she turned to the traditional religion of her fathers, Shintoism, and soon exhausted all she felt it had to offer her.
She moved over to Buddhism, the largest religion in Japan numerically. She was a student of it, but she found in its philosophical teachings no answer for the emptiness and the loneliness of her own life. Then she turned to Chinese Confucianism. She became so well read in that that she soon found a job tutoring Confucianism in some of the high schools in Tokyo, where she had moved. All of these religions had left her still frustrated and without any real answer to the meaning of her existence.
Then we moved into her neighborhood, and God had gone before. I gave her a little piece of literature. She read it and a responsive cord began to vibrate by the grace of God in her heart. It was only a matter of a few weeks of simple proclamation of the gospel of Christ through personal counseling with the Scriptures until she blossomed like a rose as the Spirit of God brought her to forgiveness, peace, and faith in Jesus Christ. The veil was torn and was partially drawn aside as the light of the gospel went in. Here was a woman, a woman in need, a woman unconscious of the real essence of her own need.
But God had gone before and the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ had met that need and transformed that life and brought her into vital faith and fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ.
The world is filled with almost three billion men and women like this, at least half of whom have never heard that the gospel is the answer to man's need.
Our responsibility, my responsibility because I am a Christian, because I have the answer, because I can meet that need is to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world of lost men. Because there is a need which I can meet, the Christian, you and I have responsibility.
Secondly, by commitment to Jesus Christ, by becoming a Christian, I immediately am related to the truth of the Word of God. I became responsible to all of God's Word when I received Jesus Christ as Savior and as Lord.
Now there are many truths in the Scripture to which I am related as a Christian, and I am related also to the world in mission. Let me select only one of them, a very important one. That's found in Paul's first letter to Timothy, the second chapter, the first verse. The Apostle Paul says, "I exhort that prayers, supplications, intercessions be made for all men."
Now what is he talking about here? That worldwide spiritual conflict for the souls of men in missions demands my involvement in prayer and in intercession.
The president of the freshman class of the Japan Christian College now is a young man who was brought to Christ about five years ago by a very good friend of mine. He began to grow in grace after he initially came to Christ and in such a remarkable way that after he graduated from high school he was put in charge of a small Christian book store in his town. He grew in grace beyond the expectations of his background or his own natural ability.
My friend, the missionary who led him to Christ, was rejoicing in what God was doing in this young man and it's been vindicated in his own spiritual leadership in the college today. But he didn't fully understand it until he went home on furlough about 18 months ago. He got down to his home town and he found that an old and a very good friend of his, a strong prayer supporter, was dying in the hospital. He went to the hospital to find this dear Christian friend lying in a coma. But there on the bedside table was a picture of this Japanese student that he had led to Christ.
And then, as he picked up the picture and looked at it and turned it over and found the date on the back when he had sent this picture to this friend to pray for this boy, her companion there at the bedside said, "Do you know this boy?"
The missionary said, "Oh yes." "Well," she said, "you know it's wonderful but our dear friend here comes out of her coma intermittently and she motions to me and I place the picture in her hand and though her voice is paralyzed from the stroke, she will lie there in the bed and feebly she will hold this picture up before God for a moment or two until her weakened hand falls on the bedclothes."
"I exhort that prayers and supplications be made for all men." Any wonder that this lad shows promise of spiritual effectiveness and leadership in the church of Jesus Christ? Prayer is needed for spiritual breakthrough.
Prayer is needed to make spiritual disciples. Paul says: If I am a Christian I am related to this truth. I am responsible to pray.
Now there's a second implication of this and that's yours; it's related to you. As you become involved in prayer, as you accept the responsibility of praying for all men, God is going to involve you. You are going to know the problem of guidance that you face when you pray about your place of service. The Lord Jesus Christ said, "Pray the lord of the harvest that he may send forth laborers into his harvest." Every Christian who becomes involved in that is certain of guidance to the place of service for Him.
Now there's a third responsibility. Let me mention it. Perhaps it's most familiar to us. Jesus Christ commanded every disciple to go and publish far and wide the kingdom of God. "You go and preach the gospel," he said, "to every creature" (Mark 16:15). And the Christian must obey. This is a Christian responsibility. "Where" will be defined by later guidance.
We have a course in world missions taught compulsorily in the third year at the Japan Christian College. One of the girls who came into that course totally ignorant of its implications—about four years ago now—became so burdened for Southeast Asia that she felt that God was calling her to that area.
She completed her course at Japan Christian College and was advised that because of certain prejudice still existing in Southeast Asia, if she had nurse's credentials she could better enter into a life of service. So she went to nurses' school. After completing her first six months training, she was put on night duty in the menial tasks of the hospital.
One warm fall evening, after she completed her work, she stepped out for a breath of fresh air. She stepped out, she thought, onto the fire escape, not knowing that the fire escape had been torn away that day and that a careless workman had left the door unguarded. She fell two stories onto a pile of brick. They picked her up bleeding, unconscious, and her back broken in two places. Fourteen months later she staggered out of the hospital, bound up in a heavy canvas and steel brace, and still believing that God was going to make her a missionary.
By sheer prayer and determination she exercised herself out of that brace. And then she began to write letters around Asia. Finally there came a voice from China, "We'll take you as you are." Here were a group of Taiwanese aborigines in the interior to whom the Chinese pastor could not communicate in Mandarin. However they did know Japanese as a result of the long occupation by Japan before the war.
This girl then began going up and down the length of Japan, trying to find from the feeble Japanese churches support for her missionary plan. Little by little a pledge of $1.50 here and $3.00 there was made, until this February, ten months ago now, I received a call one day. I responded.
One night in a tiny Japanese church in Tokyo, I stood in a circle with several Japanese pastors, laid my hands on her head, and committed her to the ministry of Jesus Christ abroad. Here was a girl who despite physical obstacles believed that the command to go and publish far and wide the kingdom of God was an order to be obeyed.
This is your responsibility and mine. It is given to every Christian. Your qualifications, your talents do not disqualify you from obedience. World evangelism is the will of God, and we must say with our Lord, "Lo I am come to do thy will, oh Lord."
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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